SY First Prime Air Bird
 

Here it is. [img]blob:https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/ec5ef61d-c052-4013-9f62-2859a0d3c117[/img]

that’ll keep 6 pilots employed...

well, you just are a ray of sunshine....

when most of us will be out on the streets seeking financial deferrals We’ll see how much of a ray of sunshine pays the bills when I open my wallet. If 10 aircraft are supposed to be 20% of SY’s operations you can do the simple math what one airplane for the next several months will do...

Amazon is going to ramp this up much faster than originally-planned precisely-because things are otherwise slow there, so 6 pilots will be 60 sooner than you think. It's no panacea, but it's a help.

I’m actually keenly interested in how this works out. It’s really the first foray by a scheduled airline into ACMI cargo flying. Could it be a new business model? Mesa tried something similar but apparently couldn’t pull it off.
Currently it’s looking like the biggest single carrier petition in our lifetime is on the horizon. This new business model muddies those waters.

Sun Country flew freight in DC-10’s. This isn’t their first time. I think Amazon probably has more faith in Sun Country pulling this off then Mesa. Their are plenty of dc-10 freight pilots still flying the 737 at SCA. It takes more than 6 pilots to fly one 737. Most airlines staff 10-12 captains and First officers per plane.

were they doing both freight and scheduled pax service at the same time in their own name, or branded flying like Prime? Have we ever had companies flying the brand of an airline that doesn’t even exist with a 121 certificate? I suppose the American Eagle brand or United/Delta Express is branded flying in a name that isn’t actually an airline, but those are plays on words for the mainline carrier they contract with. There is no Prime Air airline.... yet....


Amazon is building all the infrastructure to run an airline without actually doing it.... yet they are exercising more than enough operational control that a single carrier petition could just be lurking over the horizon.... same paint (branding of an airline that doesn’t even exist) same uniforms in some cases, directing the routes and schedules. They’re doing it all but running the plane and crew.

OMG. How much money do Teamsters members want to spend on yet another failed, prolonged legal battle? For a bunch of intelligent people, so many pilots have been so deluded about the likelihood of success of so many out-there legal theories, it's like those people who go and read some book and then decide that they really aren't required to pay income tax or that they aren't required to obey any law enforcement officer other than a Sheriff. And then actually act on it, and belittle their relatives and friends and coworkers who haven't seen the light.

These lawsuits are losers. They are losers when filed. They are losers at the end. Their purpose is not to actually win, but to bring pressure on various carriers to knuckle under to what the Teamsters want, because otherwise the employer will spend a zillion dollars on litigation and there's always the possibility of some crazy result that favors the Teamsters, which will then have to wind its way through the courts until it's corrected. Finding every lever of leverage is a time-honored tradition in dispute resolution, so, let's be clear, I don't fault them for trying, but to actually believe the claims are likely to succeed? Please.

Moreover, it seems like a lot of money has been spent on lawsuits that come to an entirely-predictable conclusion, and that the strategy hasn't worked because the leverage really wasn't there. Maybe time to try something else?

Back when ABX was pushing for single-transportation-system, their members were on this forum confident of victory and saying all sorts of mean, childish things about what they were going to ram down the ATI pilots' throats. Then they got their asses handed to them and the airline has been shrinking ever since. Management spitefully brought in a guy as President who was reputed to hate pilots, and it sounds like his actions are consistent with his reputation, as he is operating the Incredible Shrinking Airline at a time of Great Cargo Opportunity. Then ATI got a lot bigger than ABX, and so now ABX doesn't want a single-transportation-system of it and ATI because if single-transportation-system was implemented now, 1224 would be voted out and the ABX/ATI "single transportation system" pilots would become ALPA and have home-basing. See? It's isn't about the principle of the thing. It's about how a principle can be used to benefit ME ME ME, while it cloaks my arguments in a bunch of virtuous-sounding claptrap. But, hey, that's politics.

So now we don't want single-transportation-system at the two ATSG carriers that operate for Amazon, because it doesn't serve our interests. Oooh, huh. Hmmm.... Okay, new idea: let's have ALL the carriers petition for single-transportation-system (except ATI), even ones with no common ownership and myriad additional customers besides Amazon. That'll work! Once again, the Teamsters will have more members in the mix so we can really lay waste to what other people want or are happy with!! Woo-hoo!

Good luck. The guy the Teamsters use is an excellent, creative lawyer that can stand up there and believably state the most-remarkable legal theories. But my own personal opinion is that the bullying, trying-to-jam-ourselves-down-everyone's-throat approach has been a failure, any such future litigation is going to be a failure, and better to spend the money on a pool of Powerball tickets.

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